The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department’s internal governance is failing to the extent that the provincial Treasury has had to intervene to take “full control” of its financial affairs.

The provincial accountant-general, Santanu Moodley, has been dispatched to the department, in terms of a notification under the Public Finance Management Act sent by the Treasury earlier this month. This came on top of an intervention in August last year.

A number of reasons were put forward for the move. The department had overspent its budget, had extensive cash-flow difficulties, disregarded regulations, and officials who violated rules faced few consequences.

All of this mitigated against good governance, and was undermining the ability of the department to deliver on its mandate. It had implications for school nutrition programmes, transport, textbooks, and the payment of teachers.

The current intervention bills itself as “enhanced”, citing a “complete breakdown of financial governance, control systems, and procurement integrity”.

While officials at the Education Department would continue to perform their assigned duties, they would be under the supervision of Moodley and his team. Departmental officials were required to cooperate with their counterparts from Treasury or face discipline. Any malfeasance identified would be referred to the police for further investigation.

Although with limited legislative powers, South Africa’s provinces have extensive responsibility for carrying out “delivery” functions in areas like education and healthcare. This makes dysfunction at provincial level a particularly serious problem.

For KwaZulu-Natal, the intervention is politically complicated by the fact that the province is run by a coalition. Treasury is under an MEC from the Democratic Alliance while Education is under an MEC from the African National Congress. The possibility exists for this to produce strain in the relationship, especially if actionable evidence of corruption linked to politically connected figures is uncovered.